The story behind the Pogues' holiday gem, 'Fairytale of New York'

By Jim Higgins of the Journal Sentinel

Published on: 12/19/2012

In the Guardian, Dorian Lynskey offers a terrific backgrounder, with comments from most of the principals, on how the Pogues created their masterful Christmas song, 'Fairytale of New York.' This 4-minute Christmas suite is 25 years old now, but its popularity continues to grow, even though it's a melancholy tale of lovers who may or may not survive another Christmas together.

Band member accounts differ on where the initial impulse for the band to make a Christmas song came from. Lynskey reports singer Shane MacGowan's claim that Elvis Costello, who produced the Pogues' 1985 album "Rum, Sodomy & the Lash," challenged the singer to write a Christmas duet to sing with the band's bassist (and then Costello's wife), Cait O'Riordan.

Wherever the notion came from, Lynskey writes, "a Christmas song was a good idea. 'For a band like the Pogues, very strongly rooted in all kinds of traditions rather than the present, it was a no-brainer,' says banjo-player and co-writer Jem Finer. Not to mention the fact that MacGowan was born on Christmas Day 1957."

After a number of false starts and unconvincing demos, the Pogues went into the studio in the hot summer of 1987 to record their next album with producer Steve Lillywhite (U2). They had an uptempo section from Jem Finer and the more introspective verses and chorus from MacGowan."When they said they were struggling to blend MacGowan and Finer's sections, Lillywhite's solution was absurdly simple: record them separately and edit them together later."

Since O'Riordan had left the group, the next and possibly most critical decision was to choose who would sing the woman's part. Finer told Lynskey that Chrissie Hynde and Suzi Quatro were among the possibles. But it's hard to imagine anyone could have done better than the late Kirsty MacColl, then Lillywhite's wife.

"I spent a whole day on Kirsty's vocals," Lillywhite told Lynskey. "I made sure every single word had exactly the right nuance. I remember taking it in on Monday morning and playing it to the band and they were just dumbfounded."

While casual fans may think of MacGowan simply as a drunken, dentally challenged wastrel, Lynskey's article documents how diligent and ambitious a musical craftsman he was. So do take the time and read about one of the great songs of our time.

And I can't think about MacColl, who died tragically in 2000 in a boating accident, without thinking of one of her happier songs: